A number of systems and programs are offered on the market for the design, the engineering and the manufacturing of objects. CAD is an acronym for Computer-Aided Design, e.g. it relates to software solutions for designing an object. CAE is an acronym for Computer-Aided Engineering, e.g. it relates to software solutions for simulating the physical behavior of a future product. CAM is an acronym for Computer-Aided Manufacturing, e.g. it relates to software solutions for defining manufacturing processes and operations. In such systems, the graphical user interface (GUI) plays an important role as regards the efficiency of the technique. These techniques may be embedded within Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) systems. PLM refers to a business strategy that helps companies to share product data, apply common processes, and leverage corporate knowledge for the development of products from conception to the end of their life, across the concept of extended enterprise.
The PLM solutions provided by Dassault Systemes (under the trademarks CATIA, ENOVIA and DELMIA) provide an Engineering Hub, which organizes product engineering knowledge, a Manufacturing Hub, which manages manufacturing engineering knowledge, and an Enterprise Hub which enables enterprise integrations and connections into both the Engineering and Manufacturing Hubs. All together the system delivers an open object model linking products, processes, resources to enable dynamic, knowledge-based product creation and decision support that drives optimized product definition, manufacturing preparation, production and service.
Display technologies based on a screen are mainly used for the design of an object in CAD. Usually tools for design are provided to the user via command bars, located on the side of the screen. The user can tune up the position and the lists of available commands at any given time and sometimes dock more functionalities if needed. The “ribbon” providers of commands are used in almost every design software (such as Word, PowerPoint, and Illustrator). The more tools displayed, the bigger the “ribbons” and the smaller the display size for the actual under design object. Tools are then accessible via icons displayed into the “ribbons”. Once the icon corresponding to the right tool is clicked, the tool is activated and in use. This usually launches a display panel and sometimes modifies the appearance of the mouse cursor. If the user wants to change tool, the user must click again onto another icon which launches the new tool. The user needs to travel “cursor distance” every time they want to use a tool and it may be optimized (by himself) for a few tasks but not for all of them. The optimization is not time effective and requires a good knowledge of the software. Sometimes tools are accessible via their representation in an inventory, accessible via menus of the software, and which plays a similar role to the command bars. When tools are in use they can keep their appearance while being instantiated in the virtual world.
It is also worth mentioning that in most recent video games, the user can see the avatar they manipulate via sending commands holding a tool in use.
Thus, the existing solutions listed above lack efficiency, notably from a user utilization point of view. Within this context, there is still a need for an improved solution for designing an object.